One-way valves are known in the art for food preservation. The applicant acknowledges that many have designed one-way valves to function in a similar fashion to vacuum air off a container. While prior art one-way valves only do vacuuming, no one has designed a valve where one has the option to inject to fill with gas, flush or vacuum a gas off a container, or maintain a safe pressure level inside a container to avoid explosion or undesirable vacuum.
The closest prior known art is to Chen, U.S. Publication 2012/0161044 A1, which teaches a one-way valve to vacuum a closed container. The valve features a nipple and air passages that allow air to escape as one vacuums the container. Chen further uses an inverse hook that projects past a hole in a closed container. The inverse hook assimilates part of this invention in a structurally different way.
Microwave cooking: It's not advisable to heat or cook with a sealable container in a microwave oven with the lid on unless it has a steam vent. This is because the steam pressure built up during cooking will cause lid to explode or a vacuum developed as the container is cooling down after cooking and making it difficult to remove the lid. As such, it is not possible to use ordinary household sealable containers as a steam pressure cooker in a microwave oven.
Lacto fermentation: Lacto fermentation of vegetables is practiced by all cultures all over the world because it is a very effective way of preserving surplus vegetables to later use, while enhancing their nutritional values and contributing beneficially to probiotic health of the consumers. The process involves creating an anaerobic condition by submerging cut up vegetables in a brine solution in enclosed vessels or jars so the anaerobic lactic acid bacteria (LAB), which is salt tolerant and naturally present on all vegetables, could digest the vegetables and produce lactic and acetic acids and carbon dioxide gas. It is essential that air is excluded as much as possible at the onset of this process to control the pectin-destroying activities of yeast and mold, spoilage, or control unsightly floating Kahm yeast as the LAB culture is getting established. It is well known that the more pectin is lost the less crunchy and mushier the vegetables will become. As this process is progressed, the built-up CO2 gas must be released or burped regularly in a way that air or insects and flies cannot enter. Typically a cumbersome airlock device is used for this purpose, which must be removed at the end of the process for refrigeration storage. The present invention offers unique improvements and advantages to this process by vacuuming to remove air bubbles trapped to the submerged vegetables and air in the headspace of the fermenting vessel at the onset and by allowing self-burping during fermentation and convenient storage after fermentation since there is no airlock to remove.